Home is where my boys are…

Main menu

So I’ve decided to write a post about Harrison’s bedroom as it always gets a lot of likes when I share pictures of it and I really do enjoy styling it and photographing it!

I started dreaming of how his room would look whilst we were house hunting, I got totally obsessed with Pinterest and had a board dedicated to ideas for what I would do in there. From navy horizontal stripes, to a large lion mural, to navy blue feature walls. But what I really wanted to do was use the same wallpaper that I’d used in his room in our last house! I knew I wouldn’t really as it takes the fun out of designing a new room but I did absolutely love it! It was white with different silver dinosaurs and a little boy hanging from each pterodactyl, it was so cute and perfect for a nursery. I always always had questions about where it was from every time I posted pictures of it. I’d actually found it from a Facebook advert for a company named Paperboy Wallpaper. I fell in love with it and knew I had to have it for his room.

But on to his new room, the previous owners used it as a guest bedroom I think, I have included pics of it before. There is unusual part to his room which is the alcove to the right of the chimney breast, i’m not quite sure what it is but knew it would be ideal as a reading nook, and when I found the shorter Ikea picture rails fitted there perfectly I was made up!

For his feature wall I came across www.muralswallpaper.co.uk via images on Pinterest and actually fell in love with the mural I ended up using for Nate’s room first. I felt it was a bit too babyish for Harrison’s room though so toyed with the idea of a cute lion mural for a bit, but again thought it wouldn’t be suitable past a couple more years. And with the price of the Wallpaper I wanted something with a bit of longevity style-wise. And that’s when I found the map mural, it was cute enough to be suitable for him now aged 2 1/2 but would see him through to the age of 7 or more if needs be as it is educational too!

And now with the feature wall decided upon I needed to pick paints to compliment it. I knew I wanted to create a feature of the chimney breast but not to detract from the main wall, so knew a dark colour would be the best option. And with seeing and falling in love with images of Farrow and Ball’s Stiffkey Blue and Hague blue all over Pinterest and Instagram I knew that’s what it had to be! So off I popped to B&Q where they only had a tester for Hague blue and were all out of Stiffkey Blue, so I got them to scan the F&B colour card and they created a Valspar version for me. I immediately slapped them on the wall when I got home and found over the next couple of days that the Stiffkey Blue version was going to work the best. I ended up sticking with Valspar’s version as I was told by somebody who had done an interior design course that Valspar paint is just as good, if not better than F&B.

Now for the lighter colour on the remaining walls, it had to work well with the Stiffkey Blue but also closely match or complement the background of the mural, so for this I selected a few different shades of creamy/biscuit/taupe paints. I ended up selecting Crispy Crumble by Dulux. When all walls were painted I did have a bit of a panic as it was darker than I’d expected but I think it looks great now.

For the flooring I again looked to Pinterest but wanted something that went well with the walls and his Stokke nursery furniture. I love the Scandi trends for light coloured flooring and selected options of laminate, vinyl and real wood flooring from B&Q in light oak colours and a few different shades of light grey. I lay the ones I liked the best on the floor against the mural wall and held them against his furniture in both daylight and artificial light, and took photos to help me come to the decision. I’m the kind of person who considers all possibilities in every decision I make, as I’d be so hard on myself (and my husband 🤣) if I made the “wrong” decision about something. I eventually settled on B&Q Colours luxury vinyl click flooring in White Natural Oak Effect.

In Harrison’s nursery in our last house he had beautiful fitted wardrobes from Hammonds (containing mostly my clothes and shoes haha) so for his new room I needed a new wardrobe for him. The Stokke Home nursery furniture he has does not have a matching wardrobe so I needed to find one that would go nicely with it, especially as this nursery furniture is designed to take him up to around age 7. Being that the cot changes to a bed and then a day bed/playhouse, and the changing unit top can be turned upside down and placed upon the crib frame to make a desk! Anyway, I came across the Cotswold Company and loved the traditional style and shade of white of their Chantilly range, and so selected a double wardrobe for him from there. It looks great and is sturdy and will do him for years to come.

Now because this post has gone on longer than I expected I will write a second one all about his fab toys and accessories that I love to mess about with for his shelfies! My love for shelfies began in our old house where I had the longer version of his Ikea picture shelves that he has now. One of my best ever Instagram shares was when Ikea shared my image of his shelfie wall resplendent with gorgeous Instagram artwork and toys! I was made up hehe. And this was it…

So goodbye for now! And please do let me know if you have any questions or comments!

Now I’ve had a little google to see where this trend for houseplants has come from and it would seem it’s us “millenials”! We live in inner cities, in apartments, with cats and no kids, so apparently need things to nurture and help us bring the outside in! Hmm so what’s my excuse? I live in the suburbs, in a house, with two young boys….oh but wait I do have cats!!…

Actually, I do know who I can blame for my houseplant obsession, Pinterest! The Pinterest boards of these trendy millenials in their inner city apartments, and I’m just adapting the trend to my new home. As soon as we had our offer accepted on the house I got stuck into home decor inspiration on Pinterest and it was awash with cacti, succulents and houseplants, “the top ten trendy indoor plants,” “how to care for your succulents,” etc. And so my first foray into the world of succulents, cacti and houseplants began in June – i’m a newbie really! But what I lack in experience I certainly make up for in enthusiasm. In 16 weeks I have added 29 houseplants to my collection, to some that may sound a lot, but when you see some of the great insta accounts out there like @tribeandus and @the.hectic.eclectic, really 29 houseplants is nothing and I want more, more, more!

Where do I get my houseplants you may (not haha) be asking, well my absolute fave place on earth is Bents garden centre in Glazebury in Warrington , it not only has a great range of indoor plants, but tonnes of outdoor plants, a fabulous array of homewares, a lovely restaurant selling the best cakes, and the best Christmas shop ever! I think I might just live there. I’m counting down the days until the Christmas shop opens and I can get my fill of Xmas decorations for the new house and have a peruse (and purchase) in the houseplants section.

I’ve also bought plants from other garden centres closer to home, B&Q and Aldi, but a great place to buy them is Waitrose online, they quite often have 20% off offers and I ordered 4 yesterday with discount, and if you spend over £50 it’s free delivery!

For further inspiration and learning I have just bought myself a great book called ‘Urban Jungle’, by the founders of the amazing insta account @urbanjunglebloggers and it gives great hints and tips on styling your houseplants and looking after them. So I definitely recommend that if you’re just starting out like me!

Now onto my favourites of all my babies, I mean plants (hehe), one of the most popular houseplants at the moment is the good old Monstera (cheese plant), it even has its own Insta hashtag #monsteramonday. This plant really does have amazing leaves and is a lovely rich, dark green colour which looks very pleasant in my dark floored living room. The only downside to this plant is it is poisonous! So I have to keep all felines and children of the house from chewing it!

I’m also a fan of my new aloe Vera plant but that could be down to the gorgeous brass planter from la redoute that I’ve put it in! So much love as well for my large pot of cacti from Dobbies which are a fair size and I was made up when when I found them! I have my heart set on a really big cactus, the kind I keep seeing on insta and Pinterest but as of yet I’ve not seen any bigger than the one I’ve bought, so I guess I’ll keep looking!

What’s become a bit of a pain/challenge is finding nice, trendy pots to put my collection in. I have plants without pot covers, and pot covers without plants as they come in such a variety of shapes and sizes I’m finding it difficult matching them up! Even being armed with a tape measure and knowledge of the measurements of my existing plant pots hasn’t helped, doh.

So, in conclusion, I am loving adding these green beauties to my home and I don’t see this new hobby waning any time soon, especially as you can change up the look of a room weekly if you wish just by swapping and changing your plants around. And hey, the added bonus is they purify the air making us all breathe that little bit clearer! And you can’t complain about that!

Thank you for reading, if indeed you still are and please do let me know with a comment if you’re a big houseplant fan and if so which are your faves and which do you plan to buy next?

Hi all, so lots of us have tried (and perhaps given up at) creating a blog, I’ve never really been interested as I didn’t know what would make me stand out from the rest, but I’ve realised I don’t necessarily have to stand out from the rest, to just be of interest to a few readers is good enough for me!

Today I was interviewed by a (now fellow 😉 ) blogger, the gorgeous Renee aka peonieandme.co.uk who is a work friend, and she suggested I start a blog for myself. And perhaps if she had said this a couple of months ago I’d have said nahhh, there’s nothing I want to write about, but because I’m now in the midst of doing up our new home and my current obsession – house plants, it has made me a little excited! So you can expect to see and hear about new house buys, work in progress pics, before and after pics etc. And of course to tie in with my Instagram account @harrison_nate_and_me I’ll throw posts and pics in and of my gorgeous boys!

And so to slightly adapt Richard Ayoade’s phrase from the new series of The Crystal Maze – “thanks for reading- if indeed you still are.”